Paul Cornell’s Musical Coincidences

The universe is big, it’s vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. Or, sometimes, coincidences.

Some coincidences are really cool; others less so. Father’s Day writer, Paul Cornell, has looked back at the history of Doctor Who and the music charts, and discovered a few cool coincidences. Or in his own words, “which number one singles seem to offer comment on Doctor Who episodes that played during their time at the top?” On his blog, the Human Nature/ The Family of Blood scribe wrote:

“‘Lonely’ by Akon comments on Father’s Day, I guess. Love & Monsters is apt for Nelly Furtado’s ‘Maneater’. Considering they’re his favourite band, it was good to mark the start of David Tennant’s second season with the charity release of the Proclaimers’ ‘I’m Gonna Be’. I’m not sure that Dalek Sec, even in his humanoid form, could really be called a ‘Beautiful Liar’. The End of Time resonates with ‘Killing in the Name Of’. And for the only time, a Doctor Who guest star gets to number one in the week of their episode airing, as James Corden appears in The Lodger the day before the single he features on, ‘Shout’, makes it to the top. Good weekend for him.”

Oh yeah – very cool. And he’s looking at the entire history of Who, too, as well as speculating on missed opportunities:

“I’d like you to take a moment to imagine Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ playing all the way through Frontios, Resurrection of the Daleks and Planet of Fire. It isn’t hard to do.”

“The Rolling Stones and the Walker Brothers offer commentary on Galaxy Four with ‘I Can’t Get no Satisfaction’ and ‘Make it Easy on Yourself’. And as the Spencer Davis group said, The Daleks’ Masterplan did indeed ‘Keep on Running’.”

When he’s not watching television, reading books ‘n’ Marvel comics, listening to The Killers, and obsessing over script ideas, Philip Bates pretends to be a freelance writer. He enjoys collecting everything.